It follows an interview last week when he said: “If you turn yourself around, your whole life can turn around. I thought, ‘Stop going to the pub, stop feeling sorry for yourself, stop blaming other people and blame yourself’.”

He compared himself to footie idol Paul Gascoigne, 45 – being treated for booze addiction – and added: “I used to have a drink to stop thinking about depression, like a lot of depressives do. Now I feel like it’s gone.”

But things looked very different on Wednesday night after Bruce, 60, filmed a five-minute cameo appearance on ITV2 comedy show Celebrity Juice.

Bruce, who had arrived on set at around 8.30pm, then headed to the nearby Chancellors pub and was spotted downing pints of Meantime beer.

At around 9.30pm, he was seen walking out of the West London boozer looking dishevelled.

Then at 10pm, he joined friends drinking in the bar at Hammersmith’s Riverside Studios where Celebrity Juice is filmed.

Around half an hour later, he was overheard telling pals he feared he had been seen leaving the Chancellors.

Fans have also claimed he has been spotted recently drinking heavily in his home town of Rhyl, Denbighshire.

Daybreak yesterday said Bruce was appearing to “talk about finally beating the booze and depression”.

He told hosts Kate Garraway and Aled Jones: “I feel great actually. I was on a down spiral – my family tried to help me but I was turning away. I knew I was not going to be helped. I just didn’t want to bother. I just felt, ‘Let’s end it. Let’s get out of here’.”

He said he had contemplated suicide, adding: “But then my friends rallied round and I suddenly decided it’s got to end – either I’ve got to end or it’s got to end – and ‘it’, as it turns out, was depression.”

In 1998, Bruce pleaded guilty to drink driving and was banned for three years.

Then in 2010 he confessed to drunkenly yanking the wheel of the car while his wife Sandra was driving. He said he did it in a bid to kill them both. Bruce admitted drink-driving and narrowly escaped a jail sentence.

He also confessed his drinking had made him violent towards his wife during their 26-year marriage.

It was his boozing that led to him being axed from Coronation Street after he revealed storylines to fellow boozers.

Bruce later admitted he had blown his fortune and landed his family with hefty debts.

His £500,000 Cheshire home was repossessed and in 2011 his second home, a bungalow, was also seized to claim back debts.

Wife Sandra left him and moved to Wolverhampton – leaving Bruce living alone in a caravan.

Bruce, who has undergone two stints in rehab, was warned by docs in 2010 that any more drinking could kill him.

The actor, who played Les between 1997 and 2007, said in an interview in 2012 that at the height of his alcohol battle he drank up to 15 pints a day.

He has struggled to find regular work since being booted off the Street.

Yesterday, Bruce’s agent did not respond to requests for a comment about his recent boozing session.